


we stand (no promises, no demands)

by misura



Category: The Culture - Iain M. Banks
Genre: Other, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-02-06
Packaged: 2019-10-25 18:45:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17730614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: A ship and a man walk out of a bar.





	we stand (no promises, no demands)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [karanguni](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karanguni/gifts).



"War is like sex, really," the man known as Zakalwe told the avatar whose name was, in fact, Demeisen although there had been times when it had been pleased to go by 'Oh Shit, We're All Going to Die' or, from time to time, 'Eat Lead, Motherfucker', because while there were many things like the classics, sometimes one simply wished to rock it old-school, even if the time of both lead and things as ineffective as projectile weapons was long past.

"You lose at both of them?" the avatar suggested, because telling the man to shut the fuck up would have been boringly predictable.

Potentially effective, of course; there was that to consider. Still, there were other means to do that, and plenty of means to get the message across non-verbally, should it come to that.

Some of them might not even get it being told off for making a bloody mess.

 

They had met in a war bar.

Zakalwe had come for the porn, operating on the not uncommon (and perhaps not even unreasonable) assumption that if he looked long enough at people doing horrible things to other people, he'd feel better about some of the horrible things he'd done himself.

Unfair, really; _Falling Outside the Normal Moral Constraints_ thought to itself. Some people had all the luck, or rather, to be fair: some people possessed the unassuming sort of nastiness that made someone somewhere send them to interesting places and make them even more interesting for a while, before returning them to their default state of boredom. 

Not that it was particularly fussed about fairness, but one did try to put up a pretense of conforming to the prevailing attitudes when doing so might come in handy, or fool one's fellows into mistaking one's name for a statement in a more of a tongue-in-cheek nature, rather than fair warning.

But anyway.

Demeisen grabbed a chair and sat down.

Zakalwe ignored him.

The stuff of romance.

 

(They might, in a manner of speaking, have met before, but that was in another galaxy and besides, the planet's indigenous population had been annihilated, or near enough as to make no difference, and even if the fuckers had had it coming, really, it still wasn't the sort of thing one brought up in casual conversation, given how the Culture purported to feel about such things.)

 

"I give up. Why is sex like war?"

The man frowned. "If you give up, doesn't that mean I've won? In which case, and really, I don't want to get all competitive about this, because neither sex nor war are about competition, as I'm sure we can both agree, but you did bring it up and so - "

"Oops," said the avatar, on the not-that-far-fetched chance someone was recording this and it needed some semblance of deniability.

 

A row of crucified beings filled one of the screens. It was possible that they had been skinned alive as well, though the camera angle and their natural skin tone made it hard to tell. Some of them might have been screaming, but probably not.

"Notoriety isn't everything," Demeisen said.

Zakalwe frowned. "Is that one of you people's ships? Sorry, can't say I've heard of it."

The camera zoomed in on a small group of soldiers passing the row of crosses. (Definitely also skinned alive, therefore definitely not screaming and probably dead, maybe even before they'd got put up there, making the whole thing more ridiculous than horrible; why go through all that fuss for little to no pay-off, except to remind everyone what nasty-minded fuckers you lot were, and how much you didn't deserve to win? What, did these idiots think people weren't watching?)

"Nah," Demeisen said. "It's just, you're supposed to be interesting."

Zakalwe gave him a look. Not hostile or even unfriendly. "Sorry to disappoint, I guess."

Demeisen shrugged. "Want to go some place where I can make you feel even sorrier?"

"Sounds like a bad idea." Zakalwe chuckled, rose. "Sure. Why not?"

 

First aid - well, one couldn't be an Abominator class and not know a thing or two about how all those messy bits on the inside worked and how to get them working again in case of sudden trauma.

Sure, some people got killed by accident every year in the Culture, but not like this.

"Sorry about that, old chap," Demeisen said. "Don't know my own strength sometimes."

The man stirred, not quite good as new, but close enough for practical purposes, and then he pushed himself upright and said, "Do that again," which might be the first interesting thing he'd said the past four hours. "But maybe make it last a little longer this time?"

"Right you are."


End file.
